


Case No. SA-2071-2B

by Falke



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Gen, Worldbuilding, in-universe nonfiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-11-22 02:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11370993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falke/pseuds/Falke
Summary: Supplementary appendix compiled by Lauren Shayler, Precinct 4 Field IT Support Division.RESTRICTED TO ZPD INTRANET: ONGOING INVESTIGATIONDirect inquiries and corrections tolshayler@zpd.gov.





	1. One Tiger Has A Plan To Save Half The City - And You Won't Even Feel It Working

by **DIEGO KEEN**  
_Frontier Magazine_

As factories go, it's the cleanest and brightest I've ever been in. The floors are polished concrete and the ceiling is thirty feet high on white columns, hidden behind the lights. It's like walking through a cloud.

The biggest flash of color around is Rachel Claremont herself - her orange stripes and lashing tail are hard to miss, even when she's in a cleansuit and helmet with the rest of us.

She's pointing out a long slice of tungsten-steel composite, getting stretched on a giant machine like a bow.

"It takes 20 of these for each segment of the heating array," she tells us. "They keep the desert at a perfect 100.4 degrees, 24 hours a day. Without them, Tundratown would melt within a week."

That seems awfully counterintuitive on the surface, but as I learned during _Frontier's_ tour of the freshly overhauled Claremont Energy Group factory, just about everything that goes into Zootopia's climate wall depends on something else. And Rachel Claremont might spend more time than any mammal in the city thinking about how those pieces all go together.

She doesn't look like a CEO. She's a compact five feet six inches, with hunter's eyes, an engineer's logic and a gymnast's build she frequently uses to climb the wall and carry out repairs - and that's when she's not rubbing elbows with the City Council or giving climate talks at the university. She's straightforward when I ask her how long she sleeps every night: "Enough."

In her defense, she's busy. The climate wall is one of the most ambitious projects mammals have ever attempted. It functions, at its most simply, like an oversize refrigerator: Coolant loops through its pipes and vents, dumping heat from condensers on the Sahara side, pulling it from the constant rush of air over evaporators on the Tundratown side, and back again. Sahara Square is hot because Tundratown is cold, and Tundratown is cold because Sahara Square is hot.

Claremont has been helping run that refrigerator for almost two decades now. Her late husband Stephen, the joint chief shareholder, chaired the board for sixteen years while Rachel worked in the labs on the leading edge of the company's heat engineering and climatology divisions. When Stephen died in a climbing accident on Mount Sharp two years ago, the board turned to her.

Any claims of nepotism - and there have been plenty - hold less weight when you look at Claremont Energy's numbers. Since taking the director's chair, Claremont-the-tiger has pushed Claremont-the-company to the top of the renewable and high-efficiency energy game. Utilities customers pay less. Trash and recycling now funnels in for processing from all corners of Zootopia, not just Rainforest. The Ross Point nuclear station, at the end of the climate wall, powers it and twenty percent of the city without breaking a seawater-coolant sweat.

And through all that, Claremont tells me, her job hasn't changed as much as she thought it might.

"I do delegate more," she says. "My team had to learn to deal with me coming in and out of the labs, and I had to learn to navigate a boardroom. It helps that everyone's goals are aligned: Keep temperatures stable and race the climate."

That's the hardest part, according to her and to many of the hundreds of engineers her company employs. There's a graph with a jumble of curves on it above one of the engineering bays at the periphery of the factory floor. It tracks average ambient temperatures, energy availability, and Zootopia's population. The one nearly flat line on the graph, as it has been for the last two years, is the wall's temperature outputs. Even with gradual climate warming, and more heads to heat or cool, and spikes as the city's energy landscape shifts, it's stayed straight - and constant. The wall doesn't turn off, ever.

Claremont seems most worried about the population graph, and the global temperatures.

"I can't stop either of them," she says. "Mammals are moving in, and everyone needs more power. We can only slow down the emissions curve with fission, and better controls on our waste plants. It takes energy input to balance the equation - the temperature gradient at the top of the wall is literally the fulcrum it all balances on."

She tells me the eventual gating issue won't be power requirements, but surface area. Even with constant advances in heating and cooling tech from CEG labs that eke out fractions of percentage points of efficiency, there will come a time when the only way to keep mammals on both sides of the wall comfortable will be with more wall.

This will sound familiar to some readers, who happen to live close enough to get the messages from CEG reps and the visits from the city. Claremont has worked with Zootopia's City Council and utilities commissions to plan staggered expansions on both sides of the wall. Within six months, Claremont says, the company could be zoning its first easements. In three years, it might have to start moving mammals. She's careful to reassure me that nobody is getting evicted - anyone with a lease in the area already knows there are rehousing clauses they had to sign on to, and that they'll get plenty of warning.

If there's a hard part, next to the engineering and logistics that CEG makes look casually easy, it's negotiating with the city. More than half of Zootopia's population depends on the company's climate or energy technology in some way. Every dollar of tax revenue and line of regulation is scrutinized and traced. The company stands for audits down to the bolts in the wall every quarter. Claremont herself commits to efficiency targets - and is said to encourage the same singleminded drive in her colleagues to meet them.

Beyond that, CEG's long-term goals are almost refreshingly simple: keep life livable for everyone who does it near the wall, and work for sustainable energy solutions. Claremont was abstract on what that could entail, when I proposed a scenario to her at the end of the tour.

"More reactors is paperwork we're not even considering right now," she said. "We wouldn't need the capacity until the wall is twice as long."

And even if the demand ever materialized, the energy would go toward what it always has - keeping the climate in Sahara and Tundratown so perfect that it doesn't even register.


	2. Quantifying the effects of the day-night cycle on coolant efficiency in the climate regulation wall

_Modano F.*, Tyas L., Merchant Q., Desof S.* and Tarker A.*_  
Author Affiliations

**[Full PDF]**  
**[Download supplemental materials]**  
Login to ResearchRef

**Structured Abstract**

**Introduction**  
The climate regulation wall between Tundratown and Sahara Square maintains temperatures within specific ranges for both biomes using a proprietary double-cascade CO2 compression chiller. The cycle is simultaneously optimized for condensation and evaporation stages by microturbines that, given their close integration with the rest of the system, perform pressure checks at multiple points in the coolant loop **[1]**. Here, we detect variations in pressure that coincide with temperature changes during the day-night cycle - that is, solar heating and dissipation in excess of that known to be absorbed from the radiation cycle **[2]**. These temperature variations cause subsequent fluctuation in coolant pressure throughout the system, which might be exploited to improve efficiency of overall climatic regulation.

**Methods**  
We collected and synthesized nearly two years of temperature, pressure and humidity data total. Eighteen months of readings were supplied from archives **[3]** , and six months were collected in real-time from climate sensors embedded in the structure of the wall at varying altitudes and on both hot and cold sides. This included drop-in climatology stations designed for off-the-shelf use and, as the survey progressed, custom sensors designed for greater sensitivity and precision at temperature extremes (fig. 1). This yielded 98.7 percent uptime and a dataset with unprecedented resolution for all metrics. Data was cleaned and integrated into local-climate models on the Cirrus cluster at Claremont Energy labs. We cooperated on a modified version of the Alps-Steward mixing model to account for secondary temperature and wind effects across the whole city **[4]**.

**Results**  
Tabulated results are collected in appendices 3 and 4. Of most note is the relationship ( <1 sigma) between temperature flux and coolant pressure, when adjusted for outlier conditions from natural weather patterns. Nolan et al. **[5]** first suggested this relationship might explain measurable deviations in coolant pressure performance from the control case. We confirm both an exciting and depressing effect, and the precise magnitude of the effect, in cases of both heating and cooling beyond control ranges. Deviations of as much as 10mBar are recorded (fig. 2).

Nearly all the active coolant loops in the climate wall are designed to tolerate pressures of more than 1.5 times their nominal load. We show that, with software changes in the turbine control programs, most loops could be tuned to modify their pressures in response to temperature variances (fig. 3). Modeling shows gains of up to 0.48% are attainable, which would decrease power draw in some sections of the wall by 3500-5400 kw/h. **[6]**

**Discussion**  
Collected temperature and pressure data indicate coolant systems in the climate regulation wall could be optimized to improve their efficiency.

Individual turbine locations in a given coolant loop could be enhanced, but more granular research is needed to determine the pressure tolerances of a single loop in the system. Furthermore, certain loops are interconnected to make up a fail-safe system for pressure imbalances **[7]** , which will require specific pressure regimes to maintain their function.

This research does not account for wind changes from grid fins in sections six, seven and twelve, as they were installed after we collected our data **[8]**. More research is needed to determine what effect, if any, the air dynamics of the new system have on temperature changes on a day-to-day and annual basis.

**[1]** Kanno S, Applied pressure dynamics for climatological equilibrium. Struct 13:257-260  
**[2]** Hopps et al., A reduced model of Zootopian climate. Atmospheric Proceedings 21:5-15  
**[3]** Barton L, Gilbert A, Claremont Energy Group archives  
**[4]** Alps K, Steward R, Functions for improved citywide forecasting. Zootopia Technical University Journal 7:1-6  
**[5]** Nolan et al., Matching heat cycles to pressure performance in high-tolerance heat pump systems. Struct 17:104-115  
**[6]** Staedtler J et al., Normalized power draw for citywide environment maintenance: A review. Applied Energy Management 36:18-21  
**[7]** Kanno S et al., Redundancies and protections for multiyear-scale climate systems. Biome Engineering 15:35-45  
**[8]** Modano F et al., New management regimes for air mixing at the climate wall. Claremont Energy Group Newsletter 24


	3. Some thoughts on my first job

posted 16 hours ago by Adam in work stuff

My last day with Ranger Energy was a Wednesday. A couple weeks ago now.

I wasn't fired, exactly. It's one of those weird cases where there's not a word for it. I wasn't laid off, I didn't choose to resign my position as it existed. I just... stopped, because the company did, too. I'm writing here partly for my own records, and partly because I've learned a couple things that might be useful to anyone else who ever winds up in the same position.

Some context will be helpful, I think.

My job involved the software they used to develop new filters for the power plants. I can't get into the specifics - NDAs, and all - but it kept me busy. We didn't set and forget these things. Leadership set us goals every month to get the efficiency better, or the input costs down. Some of my code got fed into the 3-D printers, and those printed seed matrices in the carbon trays that grew the nanofibers they use for CO2 capture.

It was business as usual for eight months after I got hired, and the dev teams didn't really want for anything. There was no ping pong table or anything, but we had a generous parent company that gave us cash and resources on whatever tech we could justify for our work. _(This is where and how I learned that four monitors is about the threshold for useful multitasking, unless you need to watch a lot of cameras at once.)_

We got word on Tuesday - the day after leadership knew - that the company was shutting down, and it wasn't until the all-paws meeting that the VPs told us it was because we weren't hitting enough of our climate goals.

This is on the mind of any engineer who works on climate tech. And on paper, at least, we in the development wing were meeting or exceeding all the metrics we were responsible for. It was close sometimes, but we weren't falling behind. But this isn't about blaming specific mammals for what they did or didn't do. It might not have mattered anyway, if you believe the chatter about the standards CEG holds its subsidiaries to.

The room was pretty hushed, when the news came down. The director especially looked like he'd already checked out, which was strange. Until then he'd lived in his office, more or less. But that day all he talked about was this overwhelming pressure from higher up. I never thought it was that bad.

Maybe it's because I was new enough that I only sat for a couple of these staffwide meetings, but that mindset at Ranger has stuck with me. I've been thinking about it since I left, and there are a couple points I want to make about business culture that will probably apply to more than just the power industry. Sorry in advance if they sound like they're coming out of a self-help book.

First: sometimes what you do won't even be a recognizable component of the finished product, but that's no reason not to be proud of it. And that holds whether you're coding a manufacturing process in relative isolation, or worrying about how whole power plants fit into a fleet of newer infrastructure. There was a lot of I and me in the L team's language at Ranger, and I could never shake how out of place it felt.

To wit: I've only seen the physical results of my work a few times, when the engineers wheeled huge metallic pancakes as thick as I am tall around in the bays outside. The rest of the time, my contribution is unrecognizable - notable more for what it keeps out of sight than for what's in sight. And that's fine.

Second: It's true that the pace - of any business - is going to be nuts sometimes. If watching Ranger get shuttered taught me anything, it was that I was right to look at it as a challenge, rather than a pressure point. If you consider it something to surmount and supersede, rather than something that's holding you back, you'll do better and feel happier about it.

With that said, I have decided to step back from that race for now, at least until I get my balance. For what it's worth, CEG offered almost everyone in my department jobs or retraining as CAD jockeys and sysadmins, and at higher rates. They said I could call back if I ever wanted to, and I might.

Until then, it sure is nice catching up on sleep.


	4. For ZPD, More Of The Same Is A Good Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Officials tout specialist officers as a safe, effective improvement to policing

37 mammals graduated from the Zootopia Police Training Academy this year: Two fewer than the last class, according to ZPD Communications Director Marius Woodward, but all of them more capable than ever.

This is the first full year of ZPD's specialist program, which it developed with the city oversight board to provide extra training to new officers. More beat cops than ever can now be called to serve occasional roles with their unique skills.

ZPD now has more and better computer technicians. It can call on more pursuit officers, and more fast-response inclement weather teams. The force's first squirrel patrol officer graduated Thursday with entry and surveillance training. It's the sort of thing Woodward calls a perfect fit.

"We've had a chance to find perfect community niches for more of our officers than ever before in the last six months," he said. "Now, ZPD has added a whole graduating class to its roster that can bring innate knowledge and abilities to bear on Zootopia's challenges."

And now that ZPD leadership has had a taste of how that can bolster their work, there's been animated support from all corners.

"It's a no-brainer," Precinct Four Chief Emmanuel Paratas said. "For Rainforest and for everywhere else. Every officer we can get on the streets or in the trees who knows how to use that environment well will make our jobs easier."

The oversight board, for its part, tells Zootopia Times it, too, hopes ZPD's new officers will make the force more streamlined and efficient - and more proportional in its response.

"Fielding the right officer for the job is safer for everyone involved," Oversight Chair Gloria Han said. "A squirrel like Officer LeCarroll can respond to calls that an elephant or a rhino wouldn't be able to address as easily, and vice versa."

The new mindfulness is likely to resonate with residents, especially in neighborhoods where the scales and the needs of different mammals are mixed. The specialist program is part of ZPD's response to incidents in Little Rodentia and some small-scale enclaves in Tundratown, where there have been complaints about inconsiderate or dangerous police conduct.

"It's heartening," said Missy Draper, a self-professed stay-at-home mouse mom who volunteers with Little Rodentia Task Force to organize community outreach. "We know it's hard to balance what the police have to do with what a tiny community needs, but this is- well, it's a big step in the right direction."

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://falke-scribblings.tumblr.com/)


End file.
